Two Chinese brands among world's top 10

A new ranking of the world's 100 most valuable brands for the first time includes two Chinese companies in the top 10: Tencent (No 5), which was No 8 last year, and now Alibaba (No 9).

They are ranked in the BrandZ Top 100 for 2018, released on Monday. It is produced annually by the advertising and public relations company WPP and its market research unit, Kantar Millward Brown.

Alibaba is China's answer to US-based Amazon, offering services ranging from e-commerce to cloud computing. Internet giant Tencent is a major player in apps, messaging and online gaming.

Both are major payment-services providers.

Eight of the top 10 brands this year are technology or tech-related. The top 10 in order of ranking are Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Tencent, Facebook, Visa, McDonald's, Alibaba and AT&T. Google has been at the top of the ranking for eight of the past 12 years. Its brand is valued at $302 billion, up 23 percent from last year.

In 2006, the top 100 companies included only one Chinese company, China Mobile. There are now 14. The top 10 Chinese companies grew in value by 47 percent over the last year, more than twice the rate of big US brands.

The brands with the most dramatic year-on-year increase in value are led by Chinese e-commerce giant JD, which comes in at 59 after a 94 percent jump in value. JD also is getting into financial services.

"Brands that are winning in the intelligence-led marketing era include businesses such as Amazon and Tencent, which put the consumer at the heart of everything they do," said Doreen Wang, global head of BrandZ at Kantar Millward Brown.

"These brands use technology to understand the needs of their consumers and apply what they learn to create an ecosystem of services that fulfill multiple needs," she said.